STDs Galore

I think a major story overlooked by the Week in Review cartoon is the STD rate in teenage girls study that was released last week (and not just because it was covered in the Ithacan).

Reported in the March 12 issue of the New York Times and jumped to the paper's Science section, it's a fairly big story. A quarter of teenage girls having at least one STD is a huge number. The story is made even more significant by the fact that the number one STD found in the study was H.P.V. at 18% infection rate. It's common knowledge now that HPV can lead to cervical cancer and the fact that it is the most common STD found among the 14-18 year old girls in the study is horrifying both now and with regard to the future.

Withdrawl

I spent spring break in Ireland and though I had a ton of fun, I really missed knowing the news. My friend and I overheard something about Obama saying he wouldn't run for election with Hilary in some part of our travels and I still haven't had time to back track that story.

Clearly news is available overseas and I now know a decent amount about current evenets in the UK but being in the midst of election fever for so long then being torn away from it was a bit of a shocker. I found out about the Spitzer happenings from scanning the headlines of NYTimes.com before my prepaid computer time ran out.

The most news I got all week was from asking people, quickly reading headlines whenever I was online and literally reading The Independent (which happens to be my favorite British paper) over the shoulder of the old man next to me on the bus from Belfast to Dublin.

I usually have at least a vague sense of what is going on in the news world but getting the NYT delivered to my house everyday has gotten me even more hooked. It was weird being away from it.